‘Three brothers live in one house. They all look very different from each other, however, even if you try to distinguish them, one looks like the other. The firstborn is not there because he is on his way home. The second brother is not there either because he has already left home. Only the third brother is in the house. The other two brothers cannot be there if the third brother isn’t there and the third brother, 'the problem', can only exist if the first turns into the second. Finally, you can only see the first or the second brother if you try to see the third! Are the three brothers actually just one? Or two? Or none? If you can guess their names, you are basically guessing the names of three powerful rulers. They rule a big kingdom together and they are also the kingdom itself! In that way they are alike.’ This is a riddle from the book, MoMo. I want to ask those students who have too much time during their vacations but have no time during semesters, or who live in a rush because they can’t manage their time; What is the answer to this riddle? People say ‘time is gold' but why do they spend their time so poorly? Let’s find the answer to this riddle and the solution for time management through the strange story of Momo.

A long time ago, Momo, who had wavy black hair and wore shabby clothes, appeared in a village. After the appearance of Momo, the villagers always said, “Go and see Momo!” That was because Momo had the ability to listen to others. All she did was listening to other people's stories with a warm heart and the people came up with their own amazingly wise thoughts. That is why everyone went to Momo. One day, men wearing grey suits and called 'salesmen of Time Savings Bank', appeared in the village to talk to the villagers. They said, “Now, you are a customer of our bank.” They told Puji the barber that foaming soap and scissoring is a waste of time, and they told Nino the bar owner that looking after drunk people and giving money to charity is a waste of time. People were blinded by the accurate but whimsical time calculations of the grey men. So, they kept themselves busy. However, people started to become desolate and didn't realize that the 'grey time thieves’ were stealing their time. People’s minds were dominated by the thought that they should not waste even one second. The time that people saved became the grey men’s life, prolonging their lifespan. Momo went to some of her friends to ask why they hadn’t been speaking to her lately and from them she slowly heard of the story of the grey men. The friends promised to visit Momo but they never seemed to have enough time. Then agent No.BBW553c went to visit Momo because she was disturbing his sales. He approached Momo and tried to make her live busily but instead he told his secret to her. So Momo gathered some children and began picketing to save the adults from the grey men. “Why are we suddenly out of time? Come to the lot and we will reveal the secret," shouted Momo and the children. But the adults had no time to care about it and the grey men lured the children away and sent them to a daycare center. Then, the grey men began searching for Momo to get rid of her. Suddenly the turtle Cassiopeia appeared in front of Momo. On Cassiopeia’s back was written, “Let’s go together!”. So Momo followed Cassiopeia to ‘Never Street’. At the end of this street an empty house called 'Nowhere House’ appeared and Cassiopeia took Momo in. The owner of the house was Professor Hora who managed people’s time. He thought the situation was getting worse and asked Cassiopeia to invite Momo to the empire of time. At the house, the professor instructed Momo on how to defeat the grey men by using the flower of time, which finally enabled Momo to defeat the grey men and brought back the stolen time to the villagers. When she went back to the village, the villagers welcomed her because they had regained their peace.

These days our reality (similar to the grey men) says that living a busy life is wise. However, we must not trust and follow it. We should not go after only money, saving time, or short sighted goals. Rather we should search for deeper happiness. I want to ask the students of Gachon University, "Do you know the answer to the riddle?" In the riddle, the first child is ‘Future’, the second is ‘Past’, and the third is ‘Present’. The kingdom they rule together is ‘Time’, and the house they live is our ‘world’. If you think about the answer to this riddle and re-read it, we can stop grey men from stealing our time and realize the secret importance and preciousness of time.